Wicker, Feinstein Seek to Revive ‘Seersucker Thursday’

Senators gathered in the Senate reception room for a “Seersucker Thursday” back in 2011. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call File Photo)

One of the Senate’s great summer traditions will make a comeback shortly before August recess.

In a “Dear Colleague” letter, Mississippi Republican Roger Wicker and California Democrat Dianne Feinstein are inviting fellow senators to observe “Seersucker Thursday” at the end of July.

Feinstein is a longtime support of the seersucker tradition, and Wicker holds the Senate seat occupied by the founder of the event, Trent Lott. The Senate’s Seersucker day was canceled a few years back.

“Seersucker Thursday is a day to celebrate the camaraderie of the United States Senate,” Wicker and Feinstein write. “According to the Senate Historian, Senator Lott began the custom of Seersucker Thursday in 1996 to show that ‘the Senate isn’t just a bunch of dour folks wearing dark suits.’ The history of seersucker suits in the Senate dates to the summers of the early 20th century, before air conditioning was commonplace and lighter suits were a welcome reprieve from the heat.”

According to the Wicker and Feinstein letter, senators donning seersucker suits are invited to gather in the Ohio Clock corridor for a photograph at 12:30 p.m. on July 31, which is, of course, a Thursday.